II
"Mr. Joy, sir!"
"Well, Piper."
"There's a man on a horse."
"Where?"
"Rithe away oop a-top o th' hill over Willingdon—on the old drove- road from Lewes."
The Parson sprang to his feet.
"Sharp work!" he said with a grin at Kit's back.
"Well done you, boy!"
Kit leapt to the window.
"Theer!" said Blob, pointing.
Far away on the rim of the world stood a tiny horseman.
What was he, that little speck of blackness on the horse without legs?—ploughboy or dragoon?—alone or the leader of a troop?
"Wave!" cried the Parson at his elbow.
Sobbing and frantic, the lad fluttered his handkerchief.
As though in answer a bugle-call rang echoing down to them.
"The soldiers!" gasped Kit, his knees fainting beneath him. "O, thank
God!"
Close at hand another bugle rang out merrily.
"Nipper Knapp!" cried Piper. "Butter my wig, if it ain't!"
A shoal of silver minnows flashed and twinkled above the crest.
"Bayonets, by God!" roared the Parson. "Here they come, the little darlings!" as a black trickle of figures poured over the crest.
Others too had seen and heard.
A shot rang out in the stillness: the Grenadier under the thorn came back on his picquet at the double. The shot was answered ironically from the hill-side by the English Last Post. Here in the dawn France and England challenged each other tauntingly.
It was splendid. Kit's blood danced to it. He thought of old-time tournays, the champion riding into the ring at the last moment. He was half sob, half song. The wine of glory flushed his veins as at the moment when he stormed with the crew of the Tremendous at the heels of Lushy. His eyes ran; his voice broke. Now it was a shrill treble, now a hoarse bass.
The Parson was chewing his lip.
"Horse or foot, I wonder?"
"Foot," cried Kit, stamping up and down.
"Damnation!" grumbled the Parson. "Are they doubling?"
"Not they!" cried Kit, mad to insolence—"doing the goose-step by numbers so far as I can see. Good old leather-stocks!"
Knapp might have heard him: for the bugle close at hand blew the charge furiously.
"Now they've broken into a double. Come on, you chaps! come on!"
"Well done, Knapp!" muttered the Parson, swallowing his excitement.
"Good little boy! Good little b-o-y! If he lives through this, he
shall have a pint o beer to his breakfast to-morrow, by God he shall.
Piper! how long'll they take getting here?"
"Why, sir, a little better'n half an hour, I reckon. Drop down by
Motcombe, through Upperton, and down along Water Lane."
The Parson turned to Kit.
"How long will it be before the tide will float the lugger, think you?"
"Twenty minutes, sir."
The Parson grunted.
"Pot begins to boil," he said, and took off his coat.
"O, if they're too late!" cried Kit in swift agony, and turned to glance at the far frigate.
"God's never too late, my boy," answered the Parson, folding his coat carefully.